In Internet Protocol (IP) networks, a multimedia stream, such as a video stream, flows from a source to a destination over a network path and through one or more network nodes, such as routers, switches, gateway devices, etc. Reliable delivery of a multimedia stream may require sufficient bandwidth throughout the network path to support the bit-rate of the multimedia stream. If the bandwidth of the network path is not sufficient, then the quality of the multimedia stream at the destination device may be degraded due to dropped packets, for example.
Measuring or predicting the bandwidth of the path for a multimedia stream may be difficult and imprecise. Some tools for measuring bandwidth may not be available across the network, and other tools do not provide an accurate measure of bandwidth.